Imagine you're working or chillin' on your comfy couch and want to take a break and watch a video on the big screen on your desk or on your computer connected TV, but you want to use network technology to switch it on instead of getting up. Than what I'm concerned, this is the easiest way.

1. What to Install

You'll need xserver, openssh server and a terminal multiplexer like GNU screen or tmux installed and configured on the remote machine, but this is beyond the scope of this post.

The other thing you need is nvlc. This is a ncurses text user interface (TUI) for the here.
Often nvlc is packages with vlc itself, if not, install it.

2. Steps to display video

a. Connect to the remote machine over ssh

b. Start GNU screen (or tmux)

c. Start xserver if this doesn't happen automagically.

d. Create a new window in e.g. GNU screen

ctrl+a  ctrl+c

e. Make sure video is outputted to the right physical screen. For the main display, execute the following command:

export DISPLAY=:0.0 

If you have a multi monitor setup, you'll need to adapt the 0.0 part

f. Start nvlc and press h for the help page with the keyboard shortcuts.

3. Keyboard shortuts in a nutshell

The browser view looks like this.

Take care.